Mandrake is a juvenile Giant Green Iguana (Iguana iguana). He is a rescue iguana who joined my household on June 21, 2002. He and two other iguanas had been dumped at the local shelter - ice cold, covered with cysts, malnourished, and with many other problems. They were brought in to be euthanized, but my vet got them to surrender them instead and proceeded to fix them up.

He and his companions all needed partial tail amputations, and the two others also lost some toes. The female of the group was gravid, and was spayed before leaving the vet clinic. I had gone in to have one of our cats vaccinated, and found out about these three iguanas who needed new homes. I offered to help find placements for the trio, and immediately posted to the various iguana lists I belong to. Two of the iguanas were adopted by a gentleman in Maryland, but I managed to talk hubby into letting me take in the last little iguana, Mandrake.

Mandrake is a complete cutie. He's much smaller than my original iguana, Mozilla, and has a much calmer temparament. He is very skinny and I'm in the process of fattening him up a bit! He has had surgery to remove his cysts, and currently has some ugly looking scabs from that. He was lucky, and managed to keep most of his tail intact - just the tip had to be amputated. His jaw looks a little 'off', so I'm adding some calcium supplements, a UVHeat light, and lots of natural sunlight to help combat any beginning stages of metabolic bone disease.

Hopefully Mandrake will now be able to live a long, happy, and healthy life along with Mozilla and my other 'scale kids'. Noone will ever mistreat this cutie again!